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<* Freedom ! Equality ! ! Justice ! ! ! 



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These three ; but the greatest of these is Justice. 






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on THE 



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DELIVERED IN 



Music Hall, Boston, Thursday, Feb, 1, 1872, 



AND THE 



Academy of Music, New York, Feb. 20, 1872, 



BY 



VICTORIA C. WOODHULL. 

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- 



NEW YOEK : 
WOODHULL, CLAFLIN & CO.. PDBLISHEES, 

No. 44 Err-:]. Street. 

1872. 







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THE 



IMPENDING BEYOLUTION. 



Standing upon the apex of the nineteenth century, we look back- 
ward through the historic era, and in the distant, dim past catch sight 
of the feeble outreachings of the roots of humanity, which during 
thousands of years have evolved into the magnificent civilization by 
which we are surrounded. Mighty nations have risen and fallen ; em- 
pires have gathered and wasted ; races and peoples have evolved and 
decayed ; but the mystic ebb and flow of the Gigantic Spirit concealed 
within the universe has continued upon its course, ever increasing in 
strength and in variety of sequence. 

It is true that the results which have flown from this progressive 
course have very materially changed. Early in its history every 
-achievement was considered great or small, as its conquests by military 
prowess were great or small. But who in this era would think of plac- 
ing a Sesostris, or a Semiramis, or even an Alexander, or Csesar, in 
comparison as conquerors, with the steamship, the locomotive engine, 
the electric telegraph, and last and greatest, collecting the efforts of all 
men, and spreading them world-wide — the printing-press. Where 
kings and emperors once used the sword to hew their way into the 
centers of barbarism, the people now make use of their subtle powers 
of intellect to pierce the heart of ignorance. The conquerors of the 
present, armed with these keen weapons, are so intertwining the mate- 
rial interests of humanity that, where exclusion was once the rule among 
nations, intercommunication has made it the exception. Every year 
some new tie has been added to those which already bound the nations 
together, until even the continents clasp hands across the oceans, and 



} 



salute each other in fraternal unity, and the islands stand anxiously 
waiting for their deliverance. 

The grand results of all these magnificent changes have accrued to 
the benefit of nations as such. All the revolutions of the past have 
resulted in the building; of empires and the dethroning of kinors. The 
grandeur of the Roman Empire consisted in its power, centered -in and 
expressed b} r its rulers. The glory of France under the great Napoleon 
was the result of his capacity to use the people. We have no histories 
making nations famous by the greatness of their peoples. Centraliza- 
tion of power at the head of the government has been the source of all 
national honor. Under this system grades and castes of people have 
built themselves, the stronger upon the weaker, and the people as indi- 
viduals have never appeared upon the surface. 

(iovernment has gone through various and important evolutions and 
changes. First we learn of it as residing in the head of the family, 
there being no other organization. Next, families aggregated into 
tribes, with an acknowledged head. Again, tribes united into nations, 
occupying specified limits, and having an absolute ruler. Then began 
a double process, which is even now unfinished — the consolidation of 
nations into races, and the redistribution of power to the people. That 
which was once absolute in the head of the family, the tribe and the 
nation, is now shared by the head with the most powerful among the 
people. These two processes will continue until both are complete — 
until all nations are merged into races, and all races into one govern- 
ment ; and until the power is completely and equally returned to all the 
people, who will no longer be denominated as belonging to this or that 
country or government, but as citizens of the world — as members of a 
common humanity. 

" God loves from whole to part. But human soul must from indi- 
vidual to the whole." 

It is at once one of the most interesting as well as instructive of 
studies, to trace the march which civilization has described. Begin- 
ning in Asia, it traversed westward by and through the rise and decay 
of the Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Grecian and Roman Empires, each 
one of which built successively upon the ruins of the preceding, and all 



i 



culminating in the downfall of the last, whose civilization was dissemi- 
nated to impregnate that portion of the world then unknown. Modern 
Europe rose, and when at its height of power, civilization still undeviat- 
ingly marching westward, crossed the stormy Atlantic, and implanted 
itself in the virgin soil of America. 

Here, however, an entirely new process was begun. Representatives 
from all nations, races and tongues here do congregate. Not only do 
the nations of Europe and Africa pour their restless sons and daughters 
westward, but the nations of Asia, setting at defiance the previous law of 
empire, send their children against its tide to meet it and to coalesce. To 
those who can view humanity as one, this is a fact of great significance, 
since it proves America to be the center to which the nations naturally 
tend. But this is only a part of its significance. The more prophetic 
portion is, that here a new race is being developed, into which will be 
gathered all the distinctive characteristics of all the various races. 
Each race is the distinct representative of some special and predominant 
characteristic, being weak in all others. The new race will combine all 
these different qualities in one grand character, and shall ultimately 
gather in all people of all races. Observe the merging of the black 
and white races. The white does not descend to the black, but the 
black gradually approaches the white. And this is the prophecy of 
what shall be : 

"For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, 
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right and wrong ; 
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame, 
Through its ocean -sundered fibres, feels the gush of joy or shame : 
In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim." 

As in this country the future race of the world is being developed, 

so also will the foundation of the future government be developed, 

which shall become universal. It was no mere child's play or idle 

fancy of the old prophets, whose prophecies of a Christ who should 

rule the world ; come trooping down the corridors of time, and from all 

eras converge upon this. Neither were the Jews entirely at fault when 

they looked for a Messiah who should reign over the world in temporal 

as well as in spiritual things, since it is beginning to be comprehended 

that a reign of justice in temporal things can only follow from the bap- 



6 

tism of them by spirituality. And it is the approach of these hereto- 
fore widely-separated principles which is to produce the impending 
revolution. And that revolution will be the final and the ultimate con- 
test between justice and authority, in which the latter will be crushed, 
never again to raise its despotic head among and to divide the mem- 
bers of a common humanity. 

St. Paul said : " Faith, Hope and Charity. These three, but the greatest 
of these is charity." Beautiful as this triplet may appear to be to the 
casualist, it cannot bear the test of analysis. It will be replaced in the= 
vocabulary of the future by the more perfect one — Knowledge, Wisdom 
and Justice. These three, but the greatest of these is Justice. Charity, 
with its long cloak of justice escaped, has long enough covered a mul- 
titude of sins. Justice will in the future demand perfect compensation 
in all things, whether material, mental or spiritual. 

Heretofore justice has only been considered as having relation to- 
matters covered by enacted law, and its demands have been considered 
as satisfied when the law has had its full course. With Freedom and 
Equality it has been a mere abstract term with but little significance. 
There has never been such a thing as freedom for the people. It has. 
always been concession by the government. There has never been an 
equality for the people. It has always been the stronger, in some 
sense, preying upon the weaker ; and the people have never had justice. 
When there is authority, whether it be of law, of custom, or of indi- 
viduals, neither of these can exist except in name. Neither do these 
principles apply to the people in their collective capacit}^ but when the 
people's time shall come they will belong to every individual sepa- 
rately. Equality will exist in freedom and be regulated by justice. 

But what does freedom mean ? " As free as the winds "is a common 
expression. But if we stop to inquire what that freedom is, we find 
that air in motion is under the most complete subjection to different 
temperatures in different localities, and that these differences arise from 
conditions entirely independent of the air simply as such. That is to 
say, the air of itself never changes its temperature. Therefore the 
freedom of the wind is the freedom to obey commands imposed by 
conditions to which it is by nature related. So also is water always 



^L 



free to seek its own level. But neither the air or the water of one 
locality obeys the commands which come from the conditions surround- 
ing another locality. That is to say, that while air and water as a 
whole are subject to general laws, when individualized, each separate 
body must bo subject to its peculiar relations, and to the law of its con- 
ditions. Water in one locality may be pure — hydrogen, nitrogen and 
oxygen ; while in others it may contain various additional elements, as 
sodium, calcium or ammonium, and yet each is free. Air ill one 
locality may be twenty degrees above, and in another twenty degrees 
below, zero ; and yet each is free in its own sphere. 

Now, individual freedom in its true sense means just the same thing 
for the people that freedom for the air and water means to them. It 
means freedom to obey the natural condition of the individual, modi- 
fied only by the various external forces which are brought to bear 
upon, and which induce action in, the individual. What that action 
will be, must be determined solely by the individual and the operating 
causes, and in no two cases can they be precisely alike ; since no two 
human beings are precisely alike. Now, is it not plain that freedom 
means that individuals having the right to it, are subject only to the 
laws of their own being, and to the relations they sustain to the laws of 
other things by which they are surrounded? . 

If, then, freedom mean anything, it means that no individual is sub- 
ject to any rule or law to be arbitrarily imposed by other individuals. 
But several individuals may agree among themselves to be governed by 
certain rules, since that is their freedom to do so. And here is the 
primal foundation and the only authoritative source of government. No 
individual can be said to be free and be held accountable to a law to 
which he or she did not consent. 

In the light of that analysis, have the people of this country got 
freedom ? But should it be objected that such freedom would be 
liable to abuse, we reply that that is impossible. Since the moment 
one individual abuses his or her freedom, that moment lie or she is 
encroaching upon the freedom of some one else who is equally entitled 
to the same right. And the law of the association must protect against 
such encroachment. And, so far as restraint is concerned, this is 



8 

the province — the sole province — of law, to protect the rights of indi- 
vidual freedom. 

But what is equality, which must be maintained in freedom ? A 
good illustration of what equality among the people means, may be 
drawn from the equality among the children of a family in the case of 
an equal division of the property of the deceased father. If the pro- 
perty is divided among them according to their respective merits, that 
would not be equality. 

Now, equality for the people means the equality of the family, ex- 
tended to all families. It means that no personal merit or demerit can 
interfere between individuals, so that one may, by arbitration or laws, 
be placed unequally with another. It means that every individual is 
entitled to all the natural wealth that he or she requires to minister to 
the various wants of the body, and to -an equal share of all accumu- 
lated, artificial wealth — which will appear self-evident when we shall 
have analyzed wealth. It also means that every person is entitled to 
equal opportunity for intellectual acquirements, recreation and rest, 
since the first is necessary to make the performance of the individual's 
share of duty possible ; while the second and third are the natural 
requirements of the body, independent of the individuality of the per- 
son, and which was not self-created but inherited. 

Under this analysis have we any such thing as equality in this 
country ? And yet it should be the duty of government, since it is a 
fundamental portion of its theory, to maintain equality among the 
people ; otherwise the word is but a mere catch, without the slightest 
signification in fact. 

"What, then, should be the sphere of justice in maintaining equality 
in freedom? Clearly to maintain equal conditions among free indi- 
viduals. But this will appear the more evident as we proceed. The 
impending revolution, then, will be the strife for the mastery between 
the authority, despotism, inequalities and injustices of the present, and 
freedom, equality and justice in their broad and perfect sense, based on 
the proposition that humanity is one, having a common origin, common 
interests and purposes, and inheriting a common destiny, which is the 



n i r 



9 

complete statement of the religion of Jesus Christ, unadulterated by 
his professed followers. 

But does the impending revolution imply a peaceful change or a 
bloody struggle ? 

No person who will take the trouble to carefully observe the con- 
ditions of the various departments of society can fail to discern the 
terrible earthquakes just ready to burst out upon every side, and 
which are only now restrained by the thick incrustations with which 
customs, prejudices and authorities have incased humanity. Indeed, 
the whole surface of humanity is surging like the billows of the stormy 
ocean, and it only escapes general and destructive rupture because its 
composition, like the consciences of its constituent members, is so 
elastic. But, anon, the restrained furies will overcome the temper of 
their fastenings, and, rending them asunder, will sweep over the 
people, submerging thern or cleansing them of their gathered debris, as 
they shall have located themselves, with regard to its coming. 

All the struggles of humanity in the centuries which have come and 
gone have been for freedom — for freedom to think and for freedom to 
act, as against authority and despotic law, without regard to what should 
come of that thought and action. But we are now entering upon a 
struggle for something quite different from this. Having obtained free- 
dom from the despotism of rulers and governments, the rule and des- 
potism of individuals began to usurp the places made vacant by them. 
Where once the king or the emperor reigned, capital^ reinforced by the 
power of public opinion and religious authorities, now sits and forges 
chains with which to fetter and bind the people. "Where, by divine 
right, men once demanded the results of the labors of their people, the 
privileged few, by the means of an ingenious system, facetiously 
called popular laws, now make the same demand, and with equally de- 
cisive results. The demand is answered by the return of the entire 
proceeds of each year's surplus productions into their coffers. And this 
is no more true of the pauper laborers of Europe and the slave laborers 
of Asia than it is of the free labor of America. Six hundred millions 
people constantly toil all their lives long, while about ten millions sit 
quietly by gathering and luxuriating in their results. 



10 

Simple freedom, then, is not enongh. It lias not accomplished the 
redemption of the people. It has only relieved them from one form of 
slavery to leave them at the mercy of another still more insidions in 
its character, because more plansible ; since, if penury and want exist, 
accompanied by suffering and privation, under the rule of a monarch, 
he may justly be held responsible. But when it exists under the reign 
of freedom, there is no responsibility anywhere, unless it may be said 
to be in the people themselves, which is equivalent to saying responsibility 
without application. 

To illustrate this distinction without a difference, take the island of 
Cuba, with its half million inhabitants, and suppose it to be ruled by an 
absolute monarch, who administers his commands through the usual 
attaches of the court and the noblemen of the island. Virtually owning 
the people, he commands them to labor, taking from them all their pro- 
ducts, and merely feeding, clothing and sheltering them. In this case 
it would be the non-laborers who, without any circumlocution, directly 
obtain all the produced wealth, they simply expending their time and 
talent in its securing, while the lives of the people who produce it would 
be simply maintained. 

Now advance one step toward popular government — to a constitu- 
tional monarchy. In this the same results to the producing people 
will be maintained, while the noblemen will share the wealth among 
themselves, allotting a certain share to the monarch. 

Coming down to a representative government, of which personal 
liberty is the basis, the despotism of laws enacted in the interest of 
privileged classes are substituted for the personal despotism of mon- 
arch s and nobles. What the absolute monarch possesses himself of by 
the right of might, the privileged class in the popular government 
possess themselves of by the right of law, everything legal being held 
to be just. 

Now is not that precisely the case in this country? Do not all the 
results of labor accrue to the 23rivileged few ? and are not the producing 
classes just as much enslaved to them as the subjects of an absolute 
monarch are to him ? 

With this mortification, however. In the last instance, they suffer 



11 

from conditions over which they have no control ; whilst in the former 
case the conditions by which they are enslaved are of their own forma- 
tion. And I sa}^, I would rather be the unwilling subject of an abso- 
lute monarch than the willing slave of my own ignorance, of which ad- 
vantage is taken by those who spend their time in endeavoring to prove 
to me that I am free and in singing the glories of my condition, to 
hoodwink my reason and to blind my perception. 

And I further say, that that system of government by which it is pos^ 
sible for a class of people to practice upon my credulity, and, under 
false pretenses, first entice me to acquiesce in laws by which immense 
corporations and monopolies are established, and then to induce me to 
submit to their extortions because they exist according to law, pursuing 
none but lawful means, is an infernal despotism, compared to which 
the Russian Czar is a thousand times to be preferred. 

This may at first seem a sweeping indictment oi our form of govern- 
ment, but I say it is just. Suppose we take our railroad system, now 
amounting to fifty-five thousand miles. At an average cost of eighty 
thousand dollars per mile for construction and equipment, its total cost 
would be four billions four hundred millions dollars. To pay the share- 
holders an eight per cent, dividend for doing nothing, the industries of the 
country would have to be taxed three hundred and fifty millions dollars 
over and above the cost of maintenance and operation. Did this enor- 
mous drain from the products of the people stop here, the fertility of 
the country, made use of by the ingenuity of the people, might possibly 
keep pace with the demand. But it does not stop there. The net 
earning of the railroads enables their directors to make larger dividends 
than eight per cent. Do their managers relinquish this increase in favor 
of the people ? Never a bit of it. But they increase their stock either 
by selling new shares, or by making stock or scrip dividends, and to 
neither process has there been found any legal bar or cure. 

Now, what may the result of such a system be ? Why, this. If the 
stock of all these railroads be increased in the same proportion that 
some of them have already been increased, it may be raised to a thou- 
sand billions of dollars, and the people, instead of being compelled to 
pay three hundred and fifty millions dollars to provide an eight per 



12 

cent, dividend on their cost, will have to submit to the extortion of eight 
hundred million dollars annually to satisfy the demands of these legal 
despots for an eight per cent, dividend upon stock, a large part of 
which represent absolutely nothing but the people's stolen money. 

A person who would double the size of another's note simply be- 
cause the profits of his business would permit the payment of twelve 
per cent, interest, so that instead of paying twelve per cent, upon one 
hundred dollars, which would be an illegal charge, it would be six per 
cent, upon two hundred dollars, would be deemed and adjudged guilty 
of forgery. But these railroad magnates sit in their palatial offices 
and raise their notes at pleasure, and they are considered public bene- 
factors. It is a crime for a single person to steal a dollar, but a corpo- 
ration may steal a million dollars, and be canonized as saints. 

Oh, the stupid blindness of this people ! Swindled every day before 
their very eyes, and yet they don't seem to know that there is anything 
wrong, simply because no law has been violated. In their eyes every- 
thing that is lawful is right, and this has become the curse of the 
nation. But the opposite — that everything which is right is lawful — 
don't follow as a part of their philosophy. 

No matter what a person does if it is not actionable under the law ; 
he is an honest man and a good church member. But Heaven defend 
us from being truthful, natural beings, unless the law says Ave may — 
since that is to be an infamous scoundrel. 

A Vanderbilt may sit in his office and manipulate stocks, or make 
dividends, by which, in a few years, he amasses fifty millions dollars 
from the industries of the country, and he is one of the remarkable 
men of the age. But if a poor, half-starved child were to take a loaf 
of bread from his cupboard, to prevent starvation, she would be sent 
first to the Tombs, and thence to Blackwell's Island. 

An Astor may sit in his sumptuous apartments, and watch the prop- 
erty bequeathed him by his father, rise in value from one to fifty mil- 
lions, and everybody bows before his immense power, and worships 
his business capacity. But if a tenant of his, whose employer had dis- 
charged him because he did not vote the Republican ticket, and thereby 
fails to pay his month's rent to Mr. Astor, the law sets him and his 



13 

family into the street in midwinter ; and, whether he dies of cold or 
starvation, neither Mr. Astor or anybody else stops to ask, since that is 
nobody's business but the man's. This is a free country, you know, 
and why should I trouble myself about that person, because lie hap- 
pens to be so unfortunate as not to be able to pay Mr. Astor his rent? 

Mr. Stewart, by business tact, and the various practices known to 
trade, succeeds, in twenty years, in obtaining from customers AAdioni he 
has entrapped into purchasing from him fifty millions dollars, and with 
his gains he builds costly public beneficiaries, and straightway the 
world makes him a philanthropist. But a poor devil who should come 
along with a bolt of cloth, which he had succeeded in smuggling into 
the country, and which, consequently, he could sell at a lower price 
than Mr. Stewart, who paid the tariff, and is thereby authorized by law 
to add that sum to the piece, would be cast into prison. 

Now these individuals represent three of the principal methods that 
the privileged classes have invented by which to monopolize the accu- 
mulated wealth of the country. But let us analyze the processes, and 
see if it is wholly by their personal efforts that they gain this end. 

Nobody pretends that Mr. Stewart ever produced a single dollar of 
his vast fortune. He accumulated it by dealing in the productions of 
others, which he first obtained at low rates, and then sold at a sufficient 
advance over the cost of handling to make in the aggregate a sum 
amounting to millions. 

Now, I Avant to ask if all this is not arriving at the same result, by 
another method, at which the slaveholders of the South arrived, by 
owning negroes ? In the case of the latter, the slaveholder reaped all the 
benefits of the labors of the negroes. In the former case the merchant 
princes, together with the various other privileged classes, reap the 
benefit of the labors of all the working-classes of the country. Every 
year the excess of the produced wealth of the country finds final lodg- 
ment in the pockets of these classes, and they grow richer at each suc- 
ceeding harvest, while the laborers toil their lives away ; and when all 
their strength and vigor have been transformed into wealth, which, has 
been legally transferred to the capitalists, they arc heavy with age, and 



14 

as destitute as when they began their life of servitude. Did ever 
Southern slave have meaner end than this ? 

In all seriousness, is there any common justice in such a state of 
things ? Is it right that the millions should toil all their lives long, 
scarcely having comfortable food and clothes, while the few manage to 
control all the benefits ? People may pretend that it is justice, and good 
Christians may excuse it upon that ground, but Christ would never 
have called it by that name. He would even give him that labored 
but an hour as much as he that had labored all the day, but to him 
who labored not at all he would take away even that which he hath. 
And yet we hear loud professions of Christianity ascending from the 
pulpit throughout the length and breadth of the land. And when I 
listen, I cannot help exclaiming, " O, ye hypocrites, how can ye hope 
to escape the damnation of hell ? " 

Am I asked, How are these things to be amended ? I will tell you 
in the first place, that they must be remedied ; and this particular case 
of dealing in the labor of the people is to be remedied by abolishing 
huckstering, or the system of middle-men, and substituting therefor a 
general system of public markets, conducted by the people through 
their paid agents, as all other public business is performed. In these 
markets the products of the country should be received, in first hands, 
direct from the producers, who should realize their entire proceeds. In 
this manner the immense fortunes realized by middle-men, and the 
profits made by the half-dozen different hands through which merchan- 
dise travels on its way to consumers, would be saved to the producer. 
A bushel of apples, purchased in the orchard at twenty-five cents, is 
finally sold to the consumer at a dollar. Now, either the consumer 
has paid at least a half dollar too much, or the producer has received a 
half dollar too little, for the apples ; since, under a perfect system, the 
apples would go direct from the orchard to the market, and thence 
direct to the consumer. 

"We are forever talking of political economy, but it appears to me 
that the most vital points — one of which is our system of huckstery — 
is entirely overlooked. 

Suppose Mr. Stewart, instead of having labored all these years for 



15 

Lis own selfish interests, had labored in tne interests of the people ? Is 
it not clear that the half-a-hundred million dollars he has accumulated 
would have remained with the people who have consumed his goods ? 
Place all other kinds of traffic upon the same proposed basis, and do 
you not see that the system which makes merchant-princes would be 
abolished? Neither would it require one-half the people to conduct 
a general system of markets who are now employed speculating in the 
results of labor. 

In short, every person should either be a producer or a paid agent 
or officer of consumers and producers, and our entire system of shop- 
keeping reduced to a magnificent system of immense public markets. 
In this way there could also be a perfect control exercised over the 
quality of perishable goods, the want of which is now felt so severely 
in summer in all large cities, and a thousand unthought of remedies 
would necessarily suggest themselves as the sy stem should develop. 

But let us pass to one of the other branches of this same system. 
We have in our midst thousands of people of immense wealth who have 
never even done so much to justify its possession as the merchant- 
princes have done to justify themselves. I refer to our land monopo- 
lists, and to Mr. Astor as their representative. Mr. Astor inherited a 
large landed estate, which has risen in value to be worth millions of 
dollars, to which advance Mr. Astor never contributed even a day's 
labor. He has done nothing except to watch the rise and gather in the 
rents, while the whole laboring country has been constantly engaged 
in promoting that advance. What would Mr. Astor have been without 
the City of New York ?. And what would the City of New York have 
been without the United States ? You see, my friends, it will not do to 
view this matter superficially. We live in too analytic an age to per- 
mit these things to go on in the way they have been going. There is 
too much poverty, too much suffering, too mueh hard work, too many 
hours of labor for individuals, too many sleepless nights, too many 
starving poor, too many hungry children, too many in helpless old age, 
to permit these villanous abuses to continue sheltered under the name 
of respectability and public order. 

But again, and upon a still worse swindle of the people. A person 



16 

having money goes out into the public domain and acquires an im- 
mense tract of land. Shortly a railroad is projected and built, which 
runs through that tract. It offers a fine location for a station. A city 
springs up, and that which cost in some instances as little as a shilling 
per acre, is divided into town lots, and these are reluctantly parted with 
at five hundred dollars each. 

Again, 1 wish to inquire, in the name of Justice, to whom does that 
advance belong ? To the person who nominally holds the land ? What 
has he done to entitle him to receive dollars for what he only paid cents ? 
Is there any equality — is there any justice — in such a condition ? He 
profits by the action of others ; in fact at the public expense, since in 
its last analysis it is the common public who are the basis of all advance 
in the value of property. 

Now, I say, that that common public is entitled to all the benefits 
accruing from common efforts ; and it is an infamous wrong that 
makes it accrue to the benefit of a special few. And a s} T stem of society 
which permits such arbitrary distributions of wealth is a disgrace to 
Christian civilization, whose Author and his Disciples had all things in 
common. Let professing Christians who, for a pretense, make long 
prayers, think of that, and then denounce Communism, if they can ; 
and denounce me as a Kevolutionist for advocating it, if they dare. 

But, is it asked, how is this to be remedied ? I answer, very easily ! 
Since those who possess the accumulated wealth of the country have 
filched it by legal means from those to whom it justly belongs — the 
people — it must be returned to them, by legal means if possible, but it 
must be returned to them in any event. When a person worth millions 7 
dies, instead of leaving it to his children, who have no more title to it 
than anybody else's children have, it must revert to the people, who 
really produced it. Do you say that is injustice to the children ? I 
say, ISTo ! And if you ask me how the rich man's children are going 
to live after his death, I answer, by the same means as the poor man's 
children live. Let it be remembered that we have had simple free- 
dom quite long enough. By setting all our hopes on freedom we 
have been robbed of our rights. What we want now is more than 
freedom — we want equality ! And by the Heaven above us, earth's 



17 

growing children are going to have it! What right have the children 
ot the rich to be born to luxurious idleness, while the children of the 
poor are born to, all their lives long, further contribute to their ease ? 
Do they not in common belong to God's human family ? If I mistake 
not, Christ told us so. You will not dispute his authority, I am sure. 
If, instead of preaching Christ and him crucified quite so much, we 
should practice his teaching a little more, my word for it, we should all 
be better Christians. 

And when by this process all the land shall have been returned to 
the people, there will be just as much of it, and it will bo equally 
as productive, and just as much room on it as there is now. But 
instead of a few people owning the whole of it, and farming it out to 
all the rest at the best possible prices, the people will possess it them- 
selves in their own right, through just laws, paying for its possession 
to the government such moderate rates of taxes as shall be necessary 
to maintain the government 

But I may as well conclude what I have to say regarding railroads, 
which must also revert back to the people, and be conducted by them 
for the public benefit, as our common highways are now conducted. 
Yanderbilt, Scott & Co. are demonstrating it better and better every 
day that all the railroads of the country can be much more economi- 
cally and advantageously conducted under one management than under 
a thousand different managements. They imagine that very soon they 
will have accomplished a complete consolidation of the entire system, 
and that by the power of that consolidation they will be able to control 
the government of this country. 

But they will not be the first people who have made slight miscal- 
culations as to ultimate results. Thomas Scott might make a splendid 
Secretary of the Department of Internal Improvements, for which the 
new Constitution, which this country is going to adopt, makes pro- 
vision ; but he will never realize his ambition to preside over the rail- 
road system of the country in any other manner. 

And I will tell you another benefit that will follow the nationaliza- 
tion of our railroads. You have all heard of the dealing in stocks, of 
the "bulls" and the "bears," and the "longs" and the "shorts," and 



18 

tlie "lame ducks" of Wall street. Well, they will all be abolished. 
There will be no stocks in which to deal. That sort of speculation, 
by which gigantic swindlers corner a stock and take it in at their own 
figures, will, to use a vulgar phrase, be "played out." And if you 
were to see their customers, as I have seen them, rushing about Broad 
street to catch sight of the last per cent, of their margins as they dis- 
appear in the hungry maw of the complacent brokers, you would 
agree with me that it ought to be "played out." 

Under the system which I propose, not only will stock gambling be 
abolished, but also all other gambling, and the hundreds of thousands 
of able-bodied people who are now engaged in it, living from the pro- 
ducts of others, will be compelled to go to producing themselves. 

But, says the objector, take riches away from people and there will 
be no incentive to accumulate. But, my dear sir, we don't propose to 
do anything of the kind, nor to destroy any wealth. There will never 
be any less wealth than now, but a constant increase upon it. We only 
propose that the people shall hold it in their own right, instead of its 
being held in trust for them by a self-appointed few. Instead of 
having a few millionaires, and millions on the verge of starvation, we 
propose that all shall possess a comfortable competence — that is, shall 
possess the results of their own labors. 

I can't see where there is a chance for a lack of motive to come in. 
It seems to me that everybody will have a better and a more certain 
chance, as well as a better incentive to accumulate. Will the certainty 
of accumulation destroy the desire to accumulate ? Nobody but the 
most stupid would attempt to maintain that. It is not great wealth in 
a few individuals that proves a country prosperous, but great general 
wealth evenly distributed among the people. That country must be 
the most prosperous and happy where the people are most generally 
comfortably and happily circumstanced. And in this country, instead 
of a hundredth part of the people living in palaces and riding in 
coaches, while the balance live in huts and travel on foot, every per- 
son may live in a palace and ride in a coach I leave it to you to 
decide which is the preferable condition and which the more Christian. 

And why should the rich object to this ? If everybody has enough 



r-,--^ 



19 

cand to spare, should that be a subject of complaint? What more do 
people want, except it % be for the purpose of tyrannizing over others 
dependent upon them ? But no objections that may be raised will be 
potent enough to crush out the demand for equality now rising from 
an oppressed people. This demand the possessors of wealth cannot 
afford to ignore. It comes from a patiently-enduring people, who 
have waited already too long for the realization of the beautiful 
pictures of freedom which have been painted for them to admire ; for 
the realization of the songs which poets have sung to its praise. Let 
.me warn., nay, let me implore them not to be deaf to this demand, since 
they do not know so well as I know what temper there is behind it. I 
have tested it, and I know it is one that will not much longer brook 
the denial of justice. 

But there is another monopoly of which I must speak — I mean the 
monopoly of money itself. We have seen how great a tyranny that is 
which arises from monopolizing the land. But that occurring from 
the monopoly of money, is a still more insidious and dangerous form 
of despotism, since its ramifications are more extensive and minute. 
It may be exercised by the person possessing a hundred, or by the 
person possessing a million dollars. Bat what is the process ? A 
person inherits a half million dollars for which he never expended a 
.single day's lab or. He sits in his office loaning that sum of money 
say, in sums of one thousand dollars to one thousand different persons, 
each of whom conducts a little business which yields just enough to 
support a family and to pay the interest. These people live for forty 
years in this manner, and die no better off than when they began 
life. But during that time they have paid all their extra production 
to the amount of four thousand dollars, each, to the capitalist ; and, 
finally, the business itself is sold out to pay the principal. And thus 
it turns out that the capitalist obtains everything those thousand per- 
sons earned during their whole lives, they leaving nothing to their 
families. Now, what better is that result than it would have been had 
these people been slaves ? Could their owners have obtained any more 
from them ? I say they would have obtained less ; since, had they 
been slaves in name, as in fact they were, there would have been times 



20 

during the forty years that they would not have earned interest 
over cost of their support. Now, look at the capitalist. For one 
million dollars, and without the straining of a muscle, he receives five 
million dollars direct, which, reinvested from time to time as it in- 
creases, amounts at the end of the forty years to not less than fifteen 
millions dollars. 

But try another example of a somewhat different kind. A person 
having four grown children, whom he has reared in luxury, and given 
all the facilities of education, dies, leaving each of them a farm worth. 
twenty-five thousand dollars. These children having never learned 
the art of farming are incapable of conducting these farms ; but they 
lease them to four different people for a thousand dollars a year each r 
and live at ease all their lives, therefrom, never so much as lifting their 
hands to do an hour's labor. Now, who is it that supports those four 
people? Is it not clear that it is the people who work the farms? 
And how d:'d it happen that they had the farms to lease ? Simply by 
an incident for which there was no legitimate general cause, else why 
do not all children have farms and live without work ? 

Nor can you, my friends, discover anything approaching equality, or 
ought that looks like justice in that operation. I tell you nay ! It is the 
most insidious despotism, with a single exception, that is possible among 
a people. It is a despotism which was condemned in all former times, 
even by barbarians, and which the Jews were only permitted to enforce 
upon people of other nations. It is the hideous vampire fastened upon 
the vitals of our people, sucking — sucking — sucking their very life's 
blood, leaving just enough to keep up their vitality, that they may 
manufacture more. It is the heartless monster that will have the exact 
pound of flesh, even if there be loss of blood to obtain it, and there is 
no just judge near to prevent the taking, or to hold him to account if 
he take it. It paralyzes our industries ; shuts the gates in the way that 
leads to our inexhaustible treasures within the bosom of mother earth ; 
strips the stars and stripes from the masts of merchantmen ; compels our 
immense cotton lands to luxuriate in weeds ; robs our spindles of the 
power to turn them ; and lays an embargo upon every productive enter- 
prise. Whoever makes a movement to compel the earth to yield her 



21 

wealth, or to transform that wealth into useful form, must first obtain 
the consent of this despot, and pay his demands for a license. 

Thirteen millions of laborers in this country produce annually four 
thousand millions dollars of wealth, every dollar of which over and 
.above the cost of living is paid over to appease the demands of this 
insatiate monster — this horrid demon, whose name is Intere st. 

We are told that we cannot manufacture railroad iron in this coun- 
try as cheap as it can be manufactured in England. Yes ! And why ? 
Is it because we have no ore or no coal ; or that, which is not as good 
;as England has ? No ! We have on the surface what in England 
is hundreds of feet in the bowels of the earth, and coal the same ; 
and both of better quality. But money can be put at interest in this 
country so as to double itself every four years, and be amply secured. 
What reason have capitalists to construct iron 'works, or to have their 
■care, when twenty-five per cent, per year is returned them, without 
■care or risk ? And what is true of iron is also true of every other 
natural production. Is it any wonder that our manufacturers are 
obliged to demand that the people pay an additional per cent, upon 
everything they eat, drink or wear, that they may be protected In their 
various productive enterprises, when such exactions are laid upon them 
by this more than absolute monarch.? No! It would indeed be a 
wonder if it were not so. 

Now, do you suppose our markets would be flooded with British 
goods if our producing and manufacturing interests had all the money 
they require without interest? If there are any borrowers at ten per 
cent, who hear my voice, let them answer. No ; it is the tribute that 
industry is compelled to pay to capital that forces our government to 
exact ten, twenty, fifty, aye, even a hundred per cent, for the privilege 
of bringing merchandise into this country. 

But they tell us if we go to free trade that our country would 
be flooded with foreign products, so there would be absolutely no 
production of manufactured goods in the country. Now that would 
be true, if we should attempt free trade and leave the monster Interest 
with his grip upon our vitals. And here is the short-sightedness of Free- 
Traders. If we want free trade, we must, in the first place, attack, 



-7- 



22 

throttle and kill this demon, after which we may manufacture at 
prices that will not only absolutely forbid the importation of almost, 
everything that is now imported, but which will also enable us to play 
the same game with Europe that Europe has played so long upon us. 
Free money in this country would abolish every European throne within 
ten years. And yet people cannot be made to see that this country is 
their support. With free money what need would we have for a pro- 
tective tariff? Can any Protectionist answer that? 

You see, my friends, that it is the people who catch sight of an 
idea and pursue it to the death, regardless of relative ideas, who make 
reform so ridiculous. One reform cannot advance alone. All kinds 
of reform must go on together. Interest and free trade must go hand 
in hand ; interest, if either, a little ahead. 

And in this regard I- am free to confess that the National Labor 
Union's demand for a decrease of interest is the most reasonable single 
reform now being advocated. We want free trade ; but we want free 
money first, so that not a spindle or forge in this country shall stop at 
the command of those across the ocean. 

But how are we going to get free money? Why, in the very 
easiest way possible. It is the simplest problem of them alL 
I am not going into this discussion to prove to you that gold is- 
not money, since everybody ought to know that it has no more the 
properties of money than cotton, corn and pork have the properties of 
money. Now, money is that thing which, if every dollai in circulation 
should be destroyed, there would be no loss of wealth. Gold, cotton, 
corn and wheat are wealth. Destroy these and there is a loss. But 
when money is destroyed, there is no more loss than when a promis- 
sory note is destroyed. A note is an evidence of debt. It is not 
wealth, but its representative. So also is money not wealth, but its 
representative. And if we had a thousand million dollars in circula- 
tion to day, there would be no more wealth in the country than fchere- 
now is, and we would have quite as much wealth if there wero, two 
thousand jnillions dollars, since money and wealth are two entirely 
distinct things. 

But they tell us that unless money is made redeemable in gold, it 



23 

is not of any account, and that, too, in the face of our miserable green- 
back system, which was so much better even than gold that it saved the 
nation when, had we stuck to gold, we should have been destroyed. 
Oh, but it was a depreciated currency, says some one. Yes, it was a 
depreciated currency, and we should have ample reason to be thankful 
if when we come to pay our bonds, we have a depreciated currency 
with which to liquidate them, instead of being obliged, as we shall, 
to pay a thousand dollars in cotton for what we realized less than five 
hundred in gold. 

It is not the gold only of a country that constitutes its wealth. 
What should we care if we had not a single ounce of gold, if we had a 
thousand million bales of cotton, ten thousand millions bushels of corn 
and wheat, and a billion dollars' worth of manufactured goods to 
send to other countries ? So you see it is not the gold after all that 
makes a circulation good, but the sum total of all kinds of wealth. 
Now, that is what we propose to substitute for gold as the basis for a 
money issue. And instead of permitting corporations to issue it and 
remain at liberty to dispose of their property and let the people who 
hold their circulation whistle for its redemption, we propose that 
government, which can neither sell our property nor abscond with it, 
shall issue it for the people and lend it to them at cost ; or if you will 
insist on paying interest for money, why, then, pay it to the government 
and lessen your taxes that much, instead of paying interest to bankers 
and supporting government besides. 

Now, don't you think that would be rather a good sort of a money 
system ? I know that every manufacturer in the country would like 
it. But I can tell you who will not like it ; and whom we may be 
compelled to fight before they will permit us to have it ; and these are 
the money-lenders and money-changers, such as it is related the Head 
of the Christian Church — one Jesus Christ, of whom we hear a great 
deal said, but whose teachings and doctrines are wofully perverted— r 
scourged out of the Temple at a place known as Jerusalem. 

I have not been guilty of frequenting the temples of the country 
much of late, but if lam not misinformed upon the subject, and unless 
they have changed since I did frequent them, if Christ should pass 



24 

through this land of a Sunday, scourge in hand, he would find plenty 
of work to do in the same line in which he labored so faithfully among 
the Jews. 

But the National Labor Union say they won't be so hard upon these 
money-lenders as we would be. They are willing that they shall be 
eased down from the vast height to which they have attained. They 
say they shall have three per cent interest instead of six, seven, eight 
and ten, or as much more as they can steal out of the necessities of the 
case, by the circumstances and discounts. ■ But they shall be limited to 
three per cent, and in a way that they cannot evade, as they now 
evade, lawful interest. It is proposed that government shall issue this 
money, but that it shall be convertible into a three per cent, interest- 
bearing bond ; so that when money shall be so plenty that it will be 
worth less than three per cent, in business, it can be invested in bonds 
drawing three per cent. ; and the bonds to also be reconvertible into 
money, so that the moment business shall demand more money than 
there should be in circulation — which would increase the value of money 
to more than three per cent — the bonds would be converted into money 
again ; and when there should be no more bonds to convert, and money 
still worth more than three per cent, then the Government shall issue 
more money to restore the equilibrium. In this way money would al- 
ways be worth just three per cent. No more nor less, and there would 
always be just enough; or, in other words, money would be measured, 
as it never has been, and which has been the cause of all our financial 
troubles. What would you say to a person who should talk to you 
about measuring your corn in a bushel that had itself never been meas- 
ured ? But you complacently talk of money being a measure of 
values, and money has never had a measure regulating its own value. 

But this consideration is only a stepping-stone to what shall be. 
Money mus«t be made free from interest. In fact, I do not know but 
people who have money should pay something to have it securely 
loaned, the same as you must pay your Safe Deposit Companies for 
safely keeping bonds, jewels and other valuables. I think people 
ought to be made to pay for the safe keeping of monejr upon the same 
principle. Money under our present system is the only thing which 



25 

we possess that does not depreciate in value by use. The more money 
is used, the more it increases ; a proof complete of the fallacy and its 
despotism. 

The Government now pay the banks thirty millions dollars per 
year for the privilege of loaning them about three hundred millions 
national currency, which the banks reloan to the people at an average 
of ten per cent. It seems to me that is almost too good a thing to last 
long. If the Government can afford to do this thing, why can't they 
better afford to loan directly to the people for nothing, and save thirty 
millions dollars annually? Do you think the people would object? 
Oh, no; but the bankers would. But for all that the cry of "Down 
with the tyrant " is raised, and it will never cease until interest shall 
be among the things that were. 

I also desire to call attention to the reduction of the Public Debt, j 
and to the means by which this reduction has been accomplished. • 
The Administration hangs almost all of its hopes upon this fact, while 
if it were thoroughly understood it would prove its condemnation. It 
has paid three hundred millions of the debt, they say. "Who has paid 
it ? we inquire. It fails to answer. We say that that entire payment has 
be made by the producing classes of the country, while the capitalists 
have not reduced their cash balances in the least. In other words, the 
producers have got no more money now than they had before the debt 
was paid, while the capitalists have had their bonds changed into 
money. ISTow, who have paid that three hundred millions dollars? I 
repeat the laboring people have done it, just as they pay all public 
debts and all public expenses, besides constantly adding to the wealth 
of the capitalists themselves. Can such a state of things continue ? 
Again I tell jou nay. 

This wrong must be remedied by a system of progressive taxation. 
If persons having a hundred thousand dollars pay one-half per cent. 
tax, let those having a million pay ten per cent, or two millions twenty- 
five per. cent. Let there be a penalty placed upon monopolizing the 
common property, and it will soon cease and equality come in its place. 
Now, the poorest woman who buys the cheapest calico pays a tax to 



26 

the Government, while the rich appropriate her labor to pay their 
dues. Truly saidJesus, "The poor ye have with you always." 

Another mode of remedying the existing ills in industry and the 
distribution of wealth, must be in giving employees an actual interest in 
the products of their labors, so that ultimately co-operation will be the 
source of all production, its results being justly distributed among all 
those who assist in the production. First, pay the employer the same 
rate of interest for his capital that Government shall charge for loans 
made to the people ; next, the general expenses, including salaries to 
himself and all employees, the remainder to be equitably divided 
among all who have an interest in it. Do you not see what a revolu- 
tion in industrial production such a constitutional provision would 
effect ? And do you not suppose if the workingmen and women of 
this country understood the justice of it, that they would have it? I 
intend that they shall have the required information. Already there 
have been half a million tracts upon these subjects sent broadcast over 
this land, and the present year shall see double as many more, until 
every laborer, male and female, shall hold in his or her own hands the 
method of deliverance from this great oppression. 

But there is another consideration, which, more forcibly than any 
other, shows the suicidal policy which we pursue. If the present rates 
of interest are continued to be paid upon only the present banking 
capital and bonds of the country, for twenty-five years to come, the 
interest, with the principal added, will have absorbed the total present 
wealth, as well as its perspective increase. And such a consumma- 
tion as this are the European capitalists now preparing for this 
country. Europe holds not less than three thousand millions 
of bonded indebtedness of this country, which is being augmented 
every month by additional railroad bonds, or some syndicate 
operation. So do you not see that European capital is gradually, but 
nevertheless inevitably, absorbing not only all of our annually pro- 
duced wealth, but also acquiring an increased mortgage every year 
upon our accumulated wealth? There is no escaping these facts. 
Figures don't lie. Mathematics is an absolute science from whose 
edicts there is no escape. And mathematics inform us that we are 



27 

year by year mortgaging ourselves to European capitalists, who will 
ultimately step in and foreclose their mortgages, and possess them- 
selves of our all, just as we foreclose our smaller mortgages, when 
there is no hope of a further increase from interest. 

Besides the monopoly of land, money and public conveniences, there 
is another kind of monopoly still, which may appear rather strange and 
new to be thus classed, but it is neverthless a terrible tyrant. I refer 
♦ to the monopoly of education. I hold that a just government is in 
duty bound to see to it that all its children of both sexes have the 
same and equal opportunities for acquiring education, and that every 
person of adult age shall have graduated in the highest departments of 
learning, as well as in the arts, sciences and practical mechanics. 
Every person should be compelled to acquire a practical knowledge of 
some productive branch of labor, because the time will come when all 
people will be obliged to produce at least as much as they consume, or 
earn what they consume, as the paid agents of producers. What a 
revolution would that accomplish ? If every person in the world was 
to work at production two hours a day there would be a larger 
aggregate produced than there is now. Therefore every person 
must learn the art of production, and thus be equal in resources to any 
' other person, and Government must undertake the compulsory indus- 
trial education of all its children. 

Thus I could continue analysis upon analysis, until not a stone in 
the foundations of our social structure would be left unturned, and all 
would be found unworthy of our civilization — our boasted Christian 
civilization. I think Christianity has been preached at, long enough. 
I go for making a practical application of it at the very foundations of 
society. I believe in recognizing the broad principle of all religion — 
that we are all children of one great common parent, God, which, 
since it disproves the propositions of the Church, that at least a large 
portion of us are the children of the devil, and renders the services o± 
the clergy to save us from that inheritance unnecessary, will abolish 
our present system of a licensed and paid ministry. Thirty -five 
thousand ministers are paid twenty -five millions dollars annually for 
preaching the gospel in cathedrals costing two hundred and fifty mil- 
lions dollars ; and how many of them ever teach any fact other than 



28 

that Jesus was crucified, just as though that would save us from 
the sloughs of ignorance in which we are sunk ? Which one of them 
dare tell his congregation the truth, as he, if he be not a blockhead, 
knows it ? I here and now impeach the clergy of the United States 
as dishonest and hypocritical, since the best of them acknowledge that 
they do not dare to preach the whole truth, for, if they should, they 
would have to preach to empty seats — an admission sufficiently dam- 
nable to consign them to the contempt of the world and to the hell of 
which they prate so knowingly, but whose location they have not been 
able to determine, and to light the torch which shall fire the last one 
of these palatial mockeries of true religion 

Why, should Christ appear among these godly Christians as he did 
among the Jews, he would be arrested as a vagrant, or sent to jail for 
stealing corn ; and in Connecticut, perhaps, for Sabbath-breaking, or for 
telling the maid at the well " all she had ever done" which is now called 
fortune-telling, or for healing the sick by laying on of hands, which they 
denominate charlatanry. Christ and his Disciples and the multitude 
which he gathered together had all things in common. But every 
pulpit and every paper in this Christian country launch the thunders 
of their denunciations when that damnable doctrine is now advanced. 
Now, Christ was a Communist of the strictest sort, and so am I, and 
of the most extreme kind. I believe that God is the Father of all 
humanity and that we are brothers and sisters ; and that it is not 
merely a theoretical or hypothetical nothing but a stern reality, to be re- 
duced to a practical recognition. And they who cannot accept and 
practice this doctrine of Christ, and who still profess to be his fol- 
lowers, are simply stealing the livery of Christ in which to serve the 
devil in their own souls. 

I do not care to what length Christians may stretch their faces of a 
Sunday, nor how much they pay to support their ministers ; nor do I 
care how long prayers they may make, nor what sermons preach, when 
they denounce the fundamental principles of the teachings of Christ, 
I will turn upon and, in his language, utter their own condemna- 
tion : " Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these, 
ye have not done it unto " Christ. And they may make all the fuss, 



29 

call me all the hard names, they please ; but they can't escape the 
judgment. And I don't intend they shall have a chance to escape it. 
I am going to strip the masks of hypocrisy from their faces, and let 
the world see them as they are. They have had preaching without 
practice long enough. The people want practice now, and when they 
get it, they can even afford to do without the preaching. 

These privileged classes of the people have an enduring hatred for 
me, and I am glad they have. I am the friend not only of freedom in 
all things, and in every form, but also for equality and justice as welL 
These cannot be inaugurated except through revolution. I am 
denounced as desiring to precipitate revolution. I acknowledge it. I 
am for revolution, if to get equality and justice it is required. I 
only want the people to have what it is their right to have — what the 
religion of humanity, what Christ, were he the arbiter, would give 
them. If, in getting that, the people find bayonets opposing them, it 
will not be their fault if they make their way through them by the aid 
of bayonets. And these persons who possess the monopolies and who 
guard them by bayonets, need not comfort themselves with the idea that 
the people won't fight for their rights. Did they not spring to arms 
from every quarter to fight for the negro ? And will you say they 
will not do the same against this other slavery, compared to which the 
former is as an gentle shower to a raging tempest ? 

Don't flatter yourselves, gentlemen despots, that you are going to 
escape under that assumption. You will have to yield, and it will be 
best for you to do it gracefully. You are but as one to seven against 
them. Numbers will win. It will be your own obduracy if they are 
goaded on to madness. Do not rely upon their ignorance of the true 
condition. Upon that you have anchored your hopes as long as it is 
safe. There are too many reform newspapers in circulation. And 
though the columns of all our great dailies are shut to their truths, 
still there are channels through which they flow to the people — aye r 
even to those who delve in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, seldom 
seeing the joyous sunshine. And this education shall continue until 
every person who contributes to the maintenance of another in luxu- 
rious idleness shall know how such a result is rendered possible. 



30 

Hence, I say, it lies in the hands of those who have maintained this 
despotism over the common people to yield it up to them and recog- 
nize their just relations. 

And rembember what I say to you to-night : If this that is claimed 
is not granted — if, beside freedom, equality is not made possible by 
your giving up this power, by which the laborer is robbed of the re- 
sults of his labor, before our next centennial birthday, July 4th, 1876, 
you will have precipitated the most terrible war that the earth has yet 
known. 

For three years before the breaking out of the slavery rebellion I 
saw and heard with my spiritual senses the marching of armies, the 
rattle of musketry, and the roar of cannon ; and I already hear and 
see the approach of this more terrible contest. I know it is coming. 
There is but one way in which it can be averted. There was one 
way by which the slave war could have been avoided — the abolition 
of slavery. But the slave oligarchy would not listen to our Garrisons, 
Sumners, Tiltons and Douglases. Thev tried the arbitration of war, 
but they lost their slaves at last. Now, will not these later oligarchies 
— the land, the railroad, the money aristocracies — learn a lesson from 
their terrible fate ? Will they not listen to the abolitionists — to the 
Garrisons, the Sumners, the Tiltons and the Douglases — of to-day? 
Will they try the arbitration of war, which will result as did the last, 
in the loss of that for which they fight? I would that they should 
learn .wisdom by experience. The slaveholders could have obtained 
compensation for their negroes. They refused it and lost all. Pon- 
der that Lsson well, and do not neglect to give it its true application. 
You can compromise now, and the same general end be arrived at 
without the baptism of blood. It shall not be my fault if that bap- 
tism comes. Nevertheless, equality and j ustice are on the march, and 
they cannot be hindered. They must and will attain their journey's 
end. The people shall be delivered. 

I have several times referred to the methods by which these things 
may be accomplished. They are impossible under our present Con- 
stitution. It is too restricted, too narrow, to admit even an idea of a 
common humanity. True, its text is complete, but its framework 



31 

does not cany out the original design. Even George Washington, 
himself, was accused of treachery for countenancing so great a depar- 
ture as was made ; and the late war justified the grounds upon which 
that accusation was founded. The text of the Constitution held these 
truths to be self-evident, " That all men (and women) are born equal 
and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." The Constitution should have been 
erected in harmony with those declarations. It was not. There is no 
such thing as equality provided for. Life and liberty have not been 
held inalienable under it ; the pursuit of happiness has been outrage- 
ously interfered with, and the government has been made to exist 
without the consent of the governed ; and exists to-day against the 
protests of a large number of its subjects. 

Is it to be expected that anything so false as that is to its basic 
propositions can be made enduring ? It is against the constitution of 
nature itself that it should be so. Nature is always true to itself, anc( 
will always vindicate itself. If hedged in and obstructed, it will 
burst through or find its way around. The needle is not truer to the 
pole than is Nature to the truth. And Nature is always just. Those 
propositions were deduced from human rights, regardless of any 
authority or despotism. Had they been elucidated — had their princi- 
ples guided the construction of the Constitution itself, all would have 
been well. "What our fathers failed to do is left for this generation to 
perform ; and it must not shirk the duty. It must look the condition 
squarely in the face, and meet the issue as squarely. 

What issues must be met and provided for in order that human 
rights may be respected and protected ? I have already referred to the 
monopolies that must be abolished. But there are also many other V 
things. I will call attention first to minority representation, which lies 
at the base of a representative government. The State of Massachusetts 
has eleven representatives in Congress, and they are all Republicans. 
Justice would infer that there are no Democrats in the State. But 
such is not the fact. There are a large body of Democrats. They are 
not represented. That is the fault of the system of arriving at repre- 
sentation. While it is true that majorities must rule, that is not equal 



32 

to saying that minorities shall have no voice. But" the; practice lii} 
Massachusetts does say just that. I suspect if it were possible^ for all 
the real differences, politically, to be represented, that the' Congress-' 
men would stand something as follows : The Democrats " would have, 
say, four out of the eleven, the Eepublicans, say /"three," while the 
remainder would be divided between the Labor and Temprence Re-, 
formers and Woman Suffragists. Indeed, I am not certain if the door 
were to be opened that there would be any straight Eepublicans left, 1 
since all reformers are, under the present system, compelled to con- 
gregate together in this party, so as not to entirely throw away their; 
votes. The Democrats are always Democrats. Like ^ the hard-shell 
Baptists, yon always know where to find them. 

They are always on hand to vote early, and often also, if opportunity 
permit. Admit minority representation, and the Republican party in 
Massachusetts would be abolished, except that part who carry, the 
loaves and eat the fishes. They are as certain to be found fright 
there" as the Democrats are. I think the Woman Suffragists ~ cover 
about one-half the Republican party. But a large body of them are 
Spiritualists and Temperance men, while as many more are Labor Re- 
formers. But those who are more Labor Reformers than anything 
else, are perhaps two-sevenths ; who are more Woman Suffragists than 
anything else, are perhaps two-sevenths ; who are more Spiritualists 
than anything else, perhaps two-sevenths ; and who are " more Tem- 
perance men than anything else, one-seventh ; therefore, if the dele- 
gation were elected by the representation of minorities, . it ■ would 
stand four Democrats, two Spiritualists, two Labor Reformers,' two 
Woman Suffragists, and one Temperance man. But all of these, how- 
ever, would be again swallowed up whenever a Human Rights party 
should be evolved, and that will be the party of the near future, in 
whose all embracing arms the people, long suffering and long waiting, 
will at last find repose, while the Goddess of Liberty, with her scales 
of equality, shall find no more of her subjects to whom justice is not 
measured out. Then will partisan politics have received its death 
warrant; then will the people become one in heart, one in soul and 
.one in common purpose — the general good of the general whole. The 



33 

" greatest good of the greatest number will be supplanted by : "the 
general welfare, is best maintained when individual interests are best 
protected." The new government, then, must be the result of mi- 
nority representation, and all legislative bodies, and, where possible, 
all executive officers, be so elected, while the people shall retain the 
appointing as well as the veto power. Our lawmakers must be made 
law proposers, who shall coifstruct law to be submitted to the people 
for their approval, in the same manner as our public conventions 
appoint committees to draft resolutions, which are afterward adopted 
or rejected by the convention itself. This will make every person a 
legislator, having a direct interest in every law. The people will then 
no longer elect representatives to make laws by which they must be 
bound whether they approve or disapprove. The referendum is the 
desired end. The referendum is what the people require, and it is 
what the new Constitution must provide. So that in all future time 
the people themselves will be their own lawmakers — will be the 
government. 

The people must appoint all their officers, heads of departments and 
bureaus at regular intervals, and all under assistants, during faithful 
performance of duty. We want no Civil Service Commissions. Every fe 
person who shall be eligible to office under the new government will 
' be competent; and when once familiar with the duties, will not be 
removed to give room for the friend of some politician belonging to 
the party in power, since it would be the people in power at all times. 

Another matter which must have attention is the sweeping away of 
that yew de' 'esprit, our courts of justice, by making all kinds of contracts 
stand upon the honor and capacity of the contracting parties. All in- 
dividual matters must be settled by the individuals themselves without 

- appeal to the public. Our present system of enforced collection of 
debts costs every year more than is realized, and besides maintains a 
vast army of lawyers, constables and court officers in unproductive em- 
ploy. All this is wrong, entailing almost untold exactions upon the 

- producing community, who in the end are made to pay all these things. 
# Further, our system of oaths and bonds must be abolished. This 

swearing people to tell the truth, and binding them to perform their 



34 

duty, presupposes that they will lie and neglect their duty. People are 
always placed upon the side of force and compulsion — never upon that 
of personal rectitude and honor. The results are what might be ex- 
pected. It plunges us into the very things we would avoid. There 
is a philosophy, too, in all these things ; since in freedom only can 
purity exist. Anything that is not free is not pure. Anything that 
is accompanied by compulsion is no propf of individual honesty. 

The new government must also take immediate steps for the aboli- 
• tion of pauperism and beggary. It is an infamous reproach upon this 
country that there are hundreds of thousands of people who subsist 
themselves upon individual charity. I do not care whether this is 
from choice or necessity. I say it is a burning shame, requiring imme- 
diate curative steps. The indigent and helpless classes are just as 
much a part of our social body as the protected and the rich are, and 
they are entitled to its recognition. Society must no longer punish 
and compel suffering and death for its own wrongs. It must evolve 
such a social system as shall leave no single member of the common 
body to suffer. When one member of the body suffers, the whole body 
sympathizes. So, also, when a member of the social body suffers, does 
the whole body suffer. And yet we have pretended philanthropists 
and Christians who have never grasped that truth. 

Our civilization and our Christianity have been made too much a 
matter of faith in, and devotion to, the unknownable, divorced from all 
human relations. "We must first recognize and practice the brother- 
hood of man before we can be made to realize the Paternity of God, 
since "if we love not our brothers whom we have seen, how can we 
love God whom we have not seen." Our religious teaching has been 
too much of punishment, and too little of love ; too much of faith, too 
little of works ; too much of sectarianism, too little of humanitarianism ; 
too much of hell-fire arbitration, too little of inevitable law ; and too 
much of self-rightousness, and too little of innate goodness. 

And here I cannot forbear to depart from the strict line of my sub- 
ject to say a word regarding a doctrine, from the effects of which even 
this country is but slowly recovering — that of eternal damnation ! I 
say, that a people who really believe in a God who could burn his own 



35 

children in a lake of literal fire and brimstone, " where the worm dieth 
not and the fire is not quenched," and from which there is no present 
escape nor future hope, for a single unrepented misdeed, and still pro- 
fess to honor, love and worship a fiend so infernal as that would make 
Him, cannot be honest and conscientious, since they must mistake fear 
for love, and confound sycophancy with worship. It was such a be- 
lief that kindled the fires by which the early martyrs perished, by 
which theQuakers of Massachusetts were burned and the witches hanged, 
and which invented the terrible Inquisition, with its horrid racks and 
tortures. These are the legitimate results of such a belief; and if the 
people of to-day really believed what they profess in their creeds, they 
would do precisely the same things. And they would be justified, 
since it would be merciful in them to subject a person to a few mo- 
ments' torture, to induce him or her to escape the eternal tortures of Hell, 
the horrors of which all the ingenuity men can command could not in- 
vent a torture one-hundredth part as inhuman ; and yet they say our 
Heavenly Father has prepared this for nineteen- twentieths of humanity. 
Thank Heaven, however, the day has come when such libels 
upon the name of Grod are rapidly merging into the gray twi- 
light, to soon sink in blank, unfathomable oblivion. Thank 
Heaven, for its own approach earthward, to strike off the chains oj 
superstition from humanity, and for the first faint glimmering of light 
shed upon us by its angels' faces, proving to us that humanity, whether 
of earth or heaven, is : 

" One life for those who live and those who die — 
For those whom sight knows and whom memory." 

The Jews would not accept Christ since he came not with temporal 
power. But Christ will come in the power of the spirit, and shall bap- 
tise all humanity. Already His messengers begin to herald the "glad 
tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people." Already the 
music of the approaching harmonies are heard from the hill-tops of 
spirituality singing the approaching millennium. Already its divine 
notes have pierced some of the dark places of earth, making glad the 
hearts of their oppressed children, shedding light and truth and joy 
into their souls. The prophecies of all ages converge upon this, and 



36 

for their fulfillment, Christ, with all his holy angels, will come to judge 
the world, and to erect upon it that government already inaugurated- 
in Heaven and long promised Earth, for 

" Decrees are sealed in Heaven's own chancery, 
Proclaiming universal liberty. 
Rulers and kings who will not hear the call, 
In one dread home shall thunder-stricken fall. 

" So moves the growing world with march sublime, 
Setting new music to the beats of time. 
Old things decay, and new things ceaseless spring, 
And God's own face is seen in everything." 

Therefore it is that there shall soon come a time in which the people 
will ask for universal liberty, universal equality, and universal justice. 
Heretofore all branches of reform have been separated each from the 
other — have been diffusive, working in single and straight lines from 
a principle outward, utterly regardless of all other movements. Reform 
has never yet been constructive, but destructive to existing things. 
Nevertheless, all reform originates primarily from a common cause — 
the effort of humanity to attain to the full exercise of human right, 
only attainable through the possession of freedom, equality and justice. 
Any reform which does not embrace these three principles must neces- 
sarily be diffusive, instructive or educational. Each different branch 
is the squaring of a separate stone, all of which must be brought 
together and adjusted before even the corner-stone of the perfect and 
permanent structure can belaid. Republicanism even was not integral 
in its propositions. It looked simply to personal freedom. Neither 
equality in its high, or justice in its broad, sense was a portion of its 
creed. Hence republicanism as represented by the party in power 
has done its work, and those who prefer to stick to it rather than to 
come out and rally around a platform perfect in humanitarian princi- 
ples, will thus show themselves to be more republican than humanita- 
rian. 

As a nation we are nearing our first centennial birth-day. A 
hundred years have come and gone since political freedom was evolved 
from the womb of civilization. Great as its mission was, great as its 
results have been, shall the car of progress stop there? Is there noth- 



37 

ing , more for humanity to accomplish ? I tell you there are still 
mightier and more glorious things to come than human tongue hath 
spoken or heart conceived. Little did our noble sires imagine what a 
century would do with what they set in motion. From three to forty 
millions is a grand, I may almost say a terrible, stride. But with thi 
step we cannot stop. We must open new channels for the expansion 
of the human soul. 

Up to this time we have expanded almost wholly in a material and 
Intellectual sense. There is a grander expansion than either oi 
these. Wealth and knowledge have brought us power, but we lack 
wisdom- To material prosperity and intellectual acquirements there 
must be added moral purity, and then we shall get wisdom. Every- 
body appears to live as though this life were all there is of life, and 
that to get from it the most physical enjoyment were the grand thing 
to be attained Wealth has been made almost the sole aim of living, 
whereas it should only be regarded as the means to a better end; as 
the means by which to accumulate an immense capital with which to 
begin life in the next and higher stage of existence ; and he or she 
lives best on earth who does the most for humanity. 

In this view, what are professing Christians — the churches — doing for 
the general good to-day? What good can come from preaching with- 
out practice, since, though people may be able to say, "All of these. 
have I kept from my youth up," Christ, when he shall come, will reply 
to them: " Go sell all thou hath and give to the poor, and come and 
follow me." What clergyman in this city dare stand in his pulpit 
Sunday after Sunday and insist upon such practice ? or what one dare 
to insist that his church should have all things in common ? or what 
one dare to eat with publicans and sinners, or say to the woman, 
" Neither do I condemn thee." Or which one of the people dare go 
to her poor, enslaved and suffering sisters and take them to her heart 
and home? or be the good Samaritan? I tell you, my friends, be- 
ware lest those whom you scorn to know be before you with Christ, 
who knows the heart It is not what you pretend that shall make you 
Christian, but what you do, and if you do right, though the world 
curse you, yet shall you lay up treasures in Heaven thereby. There- 



38 

fore, I say that the Christianity of to-day is a failure. It is not the 
following of Christ, nor the practice of his precepts. True religion 
will not shut itself up in any church away from humanity ; it will not 
stand idly by and see the people suffer from any misery whatever. 
It is its sphere to cure all ills, whether moral, social or political. 
There are no distinctions in humanity. Everything to be truly good 
and grand, whether it be in politics, society or religion, must be truly 
moral, and to be truly moral is to live the Golden Eule. 

Therefore, it is foolish for the Christian to say, " I have nothing to 
do with politics, as a Christian. It is the bounden duty of every 
Christian to support that political party which bases itself upon Human 
Rights ; and if there is no such party existing, then to go about to con- 
struct one. It is too late in the century for a Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States to be a political thief and trickster as a 
politician, while he issues a call asking that the people inject God into 
the Constitution. Such consummate hypocrisy is an outrage upon the 
intelligence of the nineteenth century ; and it will meet its just reward. 

If they would take the precepts of Christ and build a new Constitu- 
tion upon them, nobody would object ; but to be asked to recognize a 
God whom these people have themselves fashioned and set up, who 
hath not even human sense of justice, is quite a different thing, and one 
to which this people will not submit. I could point out to you why 
this attempt is made just at this time, but I rather prefer to point out 
how this and all other attempts to put fetters upon the people must be 
avoided, and how to break the fetters by which they are already 
galled. 

Permit me to ask what practical good arises from the people's com- 
ing together and merely passing a set of resolutions. You may pa-'S 
resolutions with whereases and therefores a mile long, and what will 
be the result unless they are made practical use of. What would you 
say to a person who should come before you with a resolution setting 
forth that whereas, thus and thus, are so and so, therefore some new 
invention ought to be made to meet the conditions. Why you would 
at once say to him, " Give us the invention ; then we shall be able to 
judge whether your therefore bears any relation to your whereas." 



39 

Now precisely in that way should you judge of resolutions for political 
reform. We have had resolutions long enough. We now need a 
working model which will secure freedom, equality and justice to the 
smallest of our brothers and sisters. Anything less than this is no 
longer worthy to be considered political reform ; and that is not only 
political reform, but it is also the best application possible of the pre- 
cepts of Jesus Christ, and therefore the best Christianity, the best 
religion, since to its creed every human being who is not supremely 
selfish can subscribe. 

In conclusion, therefore, let me urge every soul who desires to be truly 
Christian to no longer separate Christianity from politics, but to make it 
the base upon which to build the future political structure. Instead of 
an amendment to the Constitution, which these hypocrites desire, recog- 
nizing a God who is simply the Father of themselves, and a Christ of 
whom they are the self-appointed representatives, give us a new Con- 
stitution, recognizing the human rights of the people to govern them- 
selves, of which they cannot be robbed under any pretext whatever, 
and my word for it, humanity will not be slow to render due homage to 
their God. Let that Constitution give a place to every branch of reform, 
while it shall not so much as militate against the rights of a single indi- 
vidual in the whole world — and we are large enough to begin to say the 
whole world — and to think of and prepare the way for the time when 
all nations, kindred and tongues shall be united in a universal govern- 
ment, and the Constitution of the United States of the World be the 

SUPREME LAW. 

Around this as a New Departure let all reformers rally, and, with a 
grand impulse and a generous enthusiasm, join in a common effort for 
the great political revolution, after the accomplishment of which the 
nations shall have cause to learn war no more. 



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